


Have Dominion

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book: The Magician's Nephew, Difficult Decisions, Ethics, Fluff, Gen, Names, Prompt Fic, Talking Animals, cotton candy bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6740410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Talking Beasts of Narnia are waiting for their names. Regardless of Aslan's words, Helen isn't at all sure she has any right to name them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have Dominion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syrena_of_the_lake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/gifts).



> This ficlet was written on 5/1/16 for [syrena_of_the_lake](http://syrena_of_the_lake.dreamwidth.org), in response to the prompt: _When Helen was just a girl, it had been so easy to dream up endless names for some future child; now, she had no idea where to start with a veritable zoo of creatures all awaiting names of their own_. It is also a [Cotton Candy Bingo](http://cottoncandy_bingo.dreamwidth.org) fill for the square _names/naming_.
> 
> So... this got rather more philosophical than I'd planned. Oops? But these are the hazards of attempting to write canon-compliant Narnia fanfic while simultaneously expressing ethical and theological disagreement with C. S. Lewis. In other words, I brought it upon myself. *wry*

"Good morning, Helen," said a nasal, snorty voice as Helen lifted the latch and swung open the door of the little outhouse she and Frank had built to tide themselves over while the dwarfs and various nature spirits argued over the location and dimensions of their eventual castle.

A castle! It still sounded impossible, and also somewhat daunting: castles, unlike palaces, were built to withstand armies. Which implied their new world might not stay peaceful for long, despite the Tree's protection. Helen didn't like that thought.

She also didn't like being surprised at her personal business, but for all that they were adult in shape and intelligence, the people of Narnia were still new in their understanding of the world. And she found herself reluctant to weight them down with shame over things that were, presumably, as natural and right for them as they had been for Eve and Adam in the garden. The Beasts, after all, were not the ones who had brought evil into this world.

And so Helen gathered her breath and said, calmly, "Good morning, Fledge. What brings you around so early? Shall I wake Frank?"

She glanced around the open meadow as she spoke, still dew-damp and drenched in shadows, the sun not yet risen above the nearby trees, and spotted several other Talking Beasts watching her with badly concealed interest. Only a week ago she might have screamed at the sheer number of fangs and claws on display, but now these were her people, to teach and protect. Somehow that notion was harder to accept than the idea of animals that reasoned and spoke.

Fledge shook his head (how strange, still, to see human gestures copied on such varied bodies) and said, "No, let him sleep. We want to ask you for a favor." He paused, rolled one eye back to glance at his fellow supplicants as if waiting for one of them to speak up.

Eventually one of the Ravens flitted forward and landed on Fledge's withers. "You said, yesterday, that we ought to choose names," said the Raven in her scratchy voice. "And you were quite right that once we have hatchlings and cubs and so on, we can't simply call them She-Raven and He-Raven. That would be dreadfully confusing. But the only names we know already belong to people and it would be just as confusing to use them a dozen times over."

"I see," said Helen, though she didn't actually, and fiddled with the tie of her dressing-gown for lack of anything further to say.

"I don't remember much about London," said Fledge before the resulting silence grew too long or awkward, "but I do recall there were astounding numbers of Humans, horses, dogs, and other creatures, and most of them had names. So we thought you must know a lot of names, enough to give one to each Beast and a bushel more for our children."

"And Aslan did say you and King Frank should name us. I remember him saying that," added a Badger, sounding rather surprised at her own courage for speaking up."

"Oh, gracious," said Helen. "He did say that, didn't he?"

What an awful responsibility. Surely Queen Victoria never had to deal with anything like this!

She'd imagined names for imagined children, of course (children who'd never come, in London, though perhaps Narnia was a more forgiving land in that respect), but faced with a hundred expectant eyes, Helen found her mind curiously blank.

"I think," she said, slowly, so as to buy time to unearth her own thoughts, polish them, and string them in proper order, "that regardless of Aslan's words, I have no right to give you names. We give names to infants, or to dumb beasts, because they can't choose their own. But you aren't infants or dumb beasts. And I shouldn't like to take that choice away from you."

A low murmuring rose in the meadow as the various Beasts considered this.

Then Fledge said, "But Aslan gave _me_ a name. When he gave me wings."

Another murmur.

Helen bit her lip. "So he did. And if you like that name, all is well. But--" and how to say this? How to put a wispy, cotton-shred feeling into words without speaking ill of the king these bright, new people so adored, who had given them life and thought and speech, but also without planting the notion that might could ever possibly make right? That a king was above the law rather than its embodiment?

She lifted her head to meet Fledge's large, liquid eye: he held her gaze steadily where once, dumb and tired and unhappy in London's cobbled confines, he would have shied away. "But I think he didn't _order_ you to change your name," she said. "Instead, he offered a new one, as a gift, the same way he offered you all the chance to be Talking Beasts. And you accepted. However, not all gifts are safe or pleasant. Some are offered as a test, and I think the chance to name all of you is one that Frank and I should not accept. If we are to be your king and queen, we should begin as we mean to go on, and give you guidance rather than commands."

Helen turned, addressed the assembly at large. "Names should always be gifts, not decrees. And I believe the best gift of all is the chance to name yourselves -- to _create_ yourselves -- for we are all, Beasts and Beings and Humans alike, made in the image of a Creator and are happiest when continuing that work. You don't need me to tell you what is or isn't a name. Pick any sound or word you like, something that has meaning or something that simply sounds pleasant, and make it yours."

There was a sense of expectant but confused silence as the Beasts thought this over, and then a Jackdaw said, "I think I'd like to be named Joke, because I was the first joke. Is that all right?"

"Absolutely," said Helen.

"And I'd like to be Grrrrarf!" said one of the Dogs.

"Also an excellent name," Helen agreed, after which the meadow rapidly descended into cheerful cacophony as the Beasts tried out names and learned themselves and each other anew.

In the east, the sun crested the emerald roof of the forest and drenched the world in gold. Helen raised her face to its joyful warmth, and smiled.


End file.
